Comments (181)

hinamanu

Kea

@Kea
You can’t separate slavery that easily from the American Civil War. It was integral to why the South went to war, a major cause of the provocations (runaway slaves making to the North and not having to return) and made great press for Abe Lincoln when he finally decided to embrace it.
So the war wasn’t entirely about slavery but it made up a big chunk of the cause of it.

I agree entirely. But the motivation was NOT human rights. The motivation was a fear of economic superiority and strength. Another words, the free market economy brought an end to slavery. (Suck it up lefties 🙂 )

Lance

So Kea
Israel involved with a full Nuke exchange with Iran isn’t going to impact us in the ‘West’?

I am more comfortable with dirty little dictatorships where said dictator is as cunning as a shit house rat (like the previous Assad of Syria) where they know the consequences of going too far, are just not worth it.

nasska

Kea

…”Why should they not have nukes?”…..

I can think of one excellent reason. The Iranians hate the west & although they may not attack the USA or any of its allies directly they would probably be quite happy to arm terroists anywhere in the world.

Can you imagine the effect of a nuclear armed Cuba, or Libya, or Indonesia?

hinamanu

The world has more debt than at any time in the past 500 years. That means we are headed to the worst Depression in 500 years. Depressions simply put are periods in history when debts are cancelled through massive bankruptcies, unemployment, Austerity and tax increases because we have not yet learned to choose scientific Debt Cancellation instead of all that pain and all those wars.

dime

Kea

Ok nasska let me take your thinking to its logical and only conclusion:

We (who ever “we” actually is) go to war with every country that resents American influence and superiority.

And you reckon Iran is loony !

As for arming militant groups, get off your high horse. America armed Saddam, the Taliban and a whole bunch of others. Saudi Arabia gives millions to militant groups (its where Bin Laden came from) has strict Sharia law and is great mates with the USA ! Go figure.

You have been tricked into believing the whole “Islam is evil and after us” narrative. By doing so you have allowed our own government to remove and restrict our rights at home. I am more concerned about that, than having Islamists come over here and make our women behave themselves.

hinamanu

Reid

More on Libya:

…not only did operational commanders have live visual and audio communications from drones overhead and intelligence assets on the ground, but that some commanders within the military were prepared to go-it-alone after being told to “stand down.”

Africom commanding officer U.S. General Carter Ham, after being ordered to essentially surrender control of the situation to alleged Al Queda terrorists and let Americans on the ground die, made the unilateral decision to ignore orders from the Secretary of Defense and activated special operations teams at his disposal for immediate deployment to the area.

According to reports, once the General went rogue he was arrested within minutes by his second in command and relieved of duty.

nasska

Kea

As a small nation it is nearly impossible for us not to be aligned with one of the major world powers. As NZ is western in outlook & practises it is obvious that we are going to look to Europe & the USA for trade & military alliances. Whatever the Yanks have done that is wrong (& I admit there is no shortage of instances) we would be looking for a long time for allies in the ME.

Islam represents everything I can find to hate about a theology or a way of life. I’ll stick with the West….warts & all.

graham

Monsanto and DuPont now supposedly have control of technology that will make men and women who eat the GM corn become sterile.

Really? Do you happen to have any REALISTIC proof of that? (NB: Facebook doesn’t actually count as “realistic”.)

And in the comments:
“Sure the Illuminati want to rule the world, ever since they were genetically modified and told they were special and not humans. They feel they can freely kill humans because we aren’t our race. They have duped the Freemasons into do their grunt work for them. Most Freemasons, even the highest levels, will never meet the evil that controls them. They do find out when they reach the highest levels (around 5% of them) that they do in fact worship Lucifer.”

I’m sorry, it’s just a bit difficult to take stuff like that seriously when you read the comments and realise the audience this is aimed at.

hinamanu

Reid

Islam represents everything I can find to hate about a theology or a way of life. I’ll stick with the West….warts & all.

nasska this is your problem, you’re not thinking with your mind, you’re “thinking” about this with your emotions. This is why you don’t see the drop-dead obvious which Kea and I and some others do. It’s clear and present, once you drop the emotional hysteria that the MSM have inculcated into you. Sorry to be condescending but that’s what it is and don’t fee bad, 90% of people on this blog are doing precisely the same thing. But none of you who favour an Iranian attack can give one single cold hard logical reason for it, because there isn’t one. It’s all based on emotional perception of the big bad Islamic boogie man.

Of course all of you think you’re being logical because all of this emotion is not visible to you, you don’t experience it as a conscious emotion. But subconsciously that’s the way it works, it wouldn’t work otherwise if you knew it. But unfortunately emotion and not logic is why most western people will clap and cheer when Iran is attacked and/or they believe it when they “find” a half-burned Iranian passport amidst the smoking ruins of a US mid-western city.

hinamanu

Kea

You have a good grasp of it Reid. It is not an issue about right v left, them v us, Western v Middle Eastern. It is about common sense.

All those who stand by their Western values are free to do so and good on them. Nobody has to give up their values or morals and that includes the people of Iran. They will change if and when they want to. None of our business either way.

Do we share the same values with North Korea? They have nukes. Should we attack them? How about Pakistan or Fiji, Cuba, Somalia. Where does it end…

hinamanu

@ Reid

I’m with ya. And exactly why the people are abandoning the MSN for alternative media and turning to third party representation. MMP has absolutely been a failure for the establishment and is now a tool for the electorate to be empowered against the establishment.

hinamanu

Max Keiser Report
According to news reports, UK banks fixed the London interbank borrowing rate (Libor) with the complicity of the Bank of England (UK central bank) at a low rate in order to obtain a cheap borrowing cost. The way this scandal is playing out is that the banks benefited from borrowing at these low rates. Whereas this is true, it also strikes us as simplistic and as a diversion from the deeper, darker scandal.

Banks are not the only beneficiaries of lower Libor rates. Debtors (and investors) whose floating or variable rate loans are pegged in some way to Libor also benefit. One could argue that by fixing the rate low, the banks were cheating themselves out of interest income, because the effect of the low Libor rate is to lower the interest rate on customer loans, such as variable rate mortgages that banks possess in their portfolios. But the banks did not fix the Libor rate with their customers in mind. Instead, the fixed Libor rate enabled them to improve their balance sheets, as well as help to perpetuate the regime of low interest rates. The last thing the banks want is a rise in interest rates that would drive down the values of their holdings and reveal large losses masked by rigged interest rates.

graham

nasska

Reid

In a perfect world your views would be mainstream. The problem is that the world we live in doesn’t realise those erstwhile ideals & therefore aligning ourselves with the devil we know tends to be sound advice. Regardless of how the USA/Israel/Iran mess plays out we as a western nation will be lumped in with the West in the eyes of the inhabitants of the ME. This is the important point……it doesn’t actually matter what we think…..the cards have been dealt in Washington, Tel Aviv & Tehran.

You are convinced that we all follow what the MSM regurgitates in front of us every day. In my case I get the newspaper for the crosswords, would rather put out my eyes than watch TV news & actually form my opinions from what I read on this & other political & social blogs. All this yet, although I will not be cheering if or when Iran is invaded, I have no problems in seeing how the situation has developed. The leadership in Tehran has brought much of the situation on itself.

Yes, the USA leaders are stuffing up big time but the thought of a nuclear armed Iran controlled by religious head cases doesn’t appeal. The enemy of my enemy has to be my ally if not my friend.

hinamanu

Reid

You are convinced that we all follow what the MSM regurgitates in front of us every day… The leadership in Tehran has brought much of the situation on itself…. …the thought of a nuclear armed Iran controlled by religious head cases doesn’t appeal.

No I know you don’t follow what the MSM regurgitates every day nasska. The MSM has been running a long term propaganda campaign against Iran for over 5 years. Over that time is has gradually gradually slowly slowly slice the elephant story here story there sewn a myth that has taken hold in many western minds, a myth which is partly encapsulated by your last several sentences I’ve quoted.

You see, Iran has done nothing. Its leader has said a few stupid things about Israel which has given the progaganda campaign an opportunity to spin the meme a little more, but it’s done nothing. Zero. Nada. Zip. History will state nasska the attack on Iran which occurred in 2013 was engineered by spin. By conflating the Iranian boogeyman with the general war on terror Islam = terrorist boogeyman, the press has executed a double-whammy on those with unaware minds. Your descriptions show they’re hitting their targets well. Tavistock must be very pleased.

The risk associated with the lack of “kiosk” network separation was recorded both in the XP Upgrade
Project risk register and the IT Security External Threat risk register. The risk was rated “medium”
overall, comprising “rare” likelihood and “major” impact. Further, the IT Security team requested that
the risk arising from the lack of network separation be escalated beyond the project to the Desktop
Upgrade Steering Group, and a member of the IT management team was copied on this request.
However, there is no evidence that the security risks around the “kiosks” or any of the penetration
testing findings were escalated any further.

See the reference architecture document gave two options, the kiosk project chose the non-preferred option which was to secure the kiosks via firewalls, routers and Active Directory trusted group configuration. There were two projects going on: the kiosk project and a desktop upgrade project. The routers were supposed to be funded by the desktop upgrade project. Hence that email from the IT Security team. So someone in the “IT management team” didn’t pick up on it. That piece is on p17 and that entire section – Design – starts on p15 has the nub of what happened.

grumpyoldhori

Religious nutters with nukes, you sum the Israelis up well.
The Yom Kippur war of 1973, Israel loaded Phantom bombers with nukes for a strike on Cairo and Damascus.
The only reason it did not take place was the Soviets telling the Israels if Cairo etc went so would Tel Aviv.
Worried about Muslims having the nukes, well since Pakistan has them it is a little late.

Reid

I wouldn’t describe the Israelis as religious nutters. I think their nutterness stems from the neighbours and the history of the formation of their state.

The Israeli’s aren’t, but their leaders are. Zionist fruitcakes. Same as quite a few of the US leaders. They camouflage themselves by pretending they do things because of the history of their formation and their neighbours.

Reid

So guessing about the four employees who are “under investigation” according to the CEO, it would be:
the project PM
the BA who dropped it from the requirements
the Security Architect on the team – if there was one
the member of the IT management team to whom the email was sent

So Deloittes, at no doubt horrendous expense, will now undertake “Phase II” which involves reviewing the Ministry’s SDLC and risk management and incident management processes. (They missed a report from a beneficiary advocate in 2011 which told them about the kiosk risk hence they need a new incident management process) So what’s the bet that at the end of the day:

Deloittes get oh who knows, let’s say $500k of taxpayer money for explaining what could have been discovered had the managers themselves wandered down the corridor.

DSW from now on undertakes an incredibly cumbersome and bureaucratic risk management and incident management escalation processes which analyses the heck out of every single little thing.

Nothing untoward happens from here on in and instead of realising this is because the whole situation was a one-off involving a couple of people who didn’t dot the “i’s,” (albeit they were BIG i’s), the management congratulates themselves on a really good job and they all get their bonuses next year because they’re so very good at their jobs (albeit every single project they do is now twice as expensive and takes twice as long because of the flash new processes).

grumpyoldhori

Jeez, people, think about what will happen,the yanks and our troops are in Afghanistan, 100,000 pissed off Iranians cross the border to grab some prisoners, and then tie them to any likely targets in Iran, now that would not stop the Israelis but it would stop the yanks.

And that is before the Iranians supply the Taliban with air to surface missiles to put paid to any chopper flights.
Invade Iran, with what ?

Manolo

SPC

kea, the north had and wanted tariffs protecting their domestic industry from European competition, the south wanted these tariffs removed. That northern capitalist exploited cheap labour via immigration, whereas the southern gentry did so through inter-generational slavery. They each “just” wanted their own way legislated across the country (southern property rights respected in the north), so it was their own country.

All economic systems, including capitalism, have a use by date – the GFC, QE and IMF consideration of moving on from private banking fractional reserve indicate this.

The current era of the world reserve currency being the American dollar and this nation hosting a private bank conglomerate Federal Reserve and the IMF and World Bank are numbered. Something has got to give way.

SPC

As for Iran, if it had not armed Hizbollah with missiles and now a drone to use against Israel, its development towards nuclear weapons status would be less pertinent. What next a nuclear warhead to Hizbollah (now armed to the point that the army of Lebanon will not confront them) and using them and the territory of Lebanon as a proxy? Hardly the behaviour of a country with a proud civilisation – but rather cowardly hiding behind the skirts of others.

tom hunter

But the motivation was NOT human rights. The motivation was a fear of economic superiority and strength. Another words, the free market economy brought an end to slavery.

Much as I’m a supporter of free market economies, it’s not possible to make that claim in light of the fact that slave numbers in the USA showed a steady decline from the founding of the republic right up to ….

[the] invention of the cotton gin in 1793 enabled more economic processing of short-staple cotton, which could readily be grown in the uplands. The invention revolutionized the cotton industry by increasing fifty-fold the quantity of cotton that could be processed in a day. The mechanization could efficiently handle short-staple cotton, which could be grown in more places than the long-staple cotton of the Low Country. Results were the explosive growth of cotton cultivation throughout the Deep South and greatly increased demand for slave labor to support it.

The free markets might have solved the problem in another century or so, but I don’t think that’s an acceptable time horizon for ending slavery. There have been treatise that have tried to place an economic reasoning over the top of the moral crusade embodied by the Abolitionist movement, but I’m awfully suspicious of such material dialectic analysis, as I would like to think you are.

No, the motivation was human rights. It would not be accurate to claim that even a majority of Northerners felt that way – although given the steady progress of anti-slavery laws through the Northern states in the decades before the war perhaps I’m making harsh judgement – but if it had not been for that motivation the South would not have worried about seceding in the first place.

Steve (North Shore)

SPC @ 4.48
“Truth’s owners and its new editor Cameron Slater say they plan to reduce its focus on advertising brothels, strip clubs and prostitutes”
It means you have to buy the new Truth to get those phone numbers? you should have had them on speed dial.

Sorry son, wide open for that, have a nice evening 🙂
The new National Party Newspaper – I like that

Steve (North Shore)

SPC,
So WhaleOil or the Editor of the Truth gives the impression to prostitutes that all men are pigs and the Pros will leave the ‘industry’? What will the Pros do?
Money is money and the oldest profession in the world will cary on as it has done since year dot. Get your hand off it!

nasska

SPC is a leftie Steve & as such is probably only interested in the “speciality” end of the market. I understand that afternoon visits to Madam Lash’s House of Pain are normal practise amongst socialists everywhere. 🙂

nasska

SPC

As per usual some right wingers have got the wrong end of the stick and a left winger has to explain why this is once again.

You should all be embarrassed that Whaleoil will be attempting to cover up more than he exposes of the Truth and has already admitted this – one day into his new job. He does not know what the truth is.

But he does need discipline, Mallard gave him some when he challenged him to a bike race and made half a man of him.

Steve (North Shore)

Nostalgia-NZ

Very difficult endgame to predict with The Truth. First of all the decline in print media sales and the contraction in that market.
Also whether The Truth will attempt to become the new National party newspaper as some here predict. I doubt it.
Slater isn’t a one dimensional character and either is the design of The Truth. People will remember that it was a paper some families would not have in the home, though the dad or teenage sons may have been ‘discreet’ readers. It has a very varied and pithy background and so it will be interesting to see any editorial changes, also the decision on how they intend to include the current reader base in plans for changes to content in the future.
Inspired choice to introduce a well known blogger as editor. A decision probably unprecedented in print media history in NZ, a modern phenomenon crossing with an old, also bringing parallels to celebrity choices for talk back hosts or tv presenters.
Should be a hold on to your hat excursion whichever way viewed.
I think it shows that traditional and cyber print were never much varied, rather that cyber print worked in the out lands as society adjusted to another information medium.

RF

It’s quite sad if not amusing that some of the lefty screw balls that frequent this site enjoy the freedom of expressing their views no matter how anti establishment they are. If I was to try to express similar thoughts.. Opinions on the left wing sites I would be banished for ever. As the Fred Dagg song goes… You don’t know how lucky you are.

Nostalgia-NZ

grumpyoldhori

SPC The Hezbollah, smart well disciplined troops.
The Israelis, not so smart, putting a platoon of infantry into an old house to shelter overnight from the elements.
Then they whined when the Hezbollah clobbered them with a dual warhead missile.
Fuckers were too lazy to dig in

SPC

RF, you could always try Red Alert, frogblog and The Standard and find out. Unlike National, Labour and the Green MP’s post on-line and take comments. There are certainly right wingers critical of Greens and Labour posting on their sites, and some have been doing it for some time without any censorship.

SPC

goh, I suppose that would be the first time they targeted a missile on a combatant unit that was not also Lebanese. I wonder if those skills are now being used in Syria on fellow Islamists on behalf of the secular Baath party – just because it’s dominated by Shia and is thus an ally of Iran the Hizbollah sponsor. So much for integrity.

RF

SPC. It is sad that I was once a card carrying member of Labour and deeply involved in my local LEC in a North Island branch. I came across information that I did not believe to be a true reflection of what this country is all about. I would never rat on Labour but at the same time I would never ever support them again.

SPC

I remember having a correspondence with Douglas in 1983 before the 1984 election about what he thought should happen. He was very straight forward about it – he preferred an assets tax to a CGT, but later did neither etc. Nothing he did, before the flat tax idea, surprised me as it has all been signposted before 1984.

While some in the Labour party felt betrayed, they must have been asleep to have been surprised – Lange chose him knowing all of it.

Later sitting on a commuter train back before the 1990 election listening to two guys talks about the future of housing under the next government – things that were not in National’s manifesto, was a bit disenchanting. The money to be made knowing things others did not – sort of changes the way one sees the political process.